Archive for goals

Well hi, friends! Happy 2013. Hope the new year is treating you well so far.

Instead of a year’s worth of goals, I’m going to try something new (to me) this year. I’m going to set some priorities or goals at the beginning of each month. Hopefully that will help me be realistic, as well as on-track and prioritized. Or, you know, not at all. Remains to be seen.

So, here are my three goals for January:

1. Finish my sister’s wedding quilt. I was making good progress on it, and then WHAMMO, December totally escaped me in a blur of teacher gifts and a complete lack of plans for school vacation. But now I’ve got the back made, and plenty of batting. Time to baste, quilt, and bind this sucker. Should be do-able.

2. Finish the first of three baby quilts that need to get done ASAP. You know how these things come in waves, right? All was quiet on the baby front for a while, but now I’ve got three new babies being born to close friends within a couple of months. The recipient for this one, in fact, was born almost a month ago. Oops. Gotta get on that.

3. Catch up with my Woodland Sampler cross-stitch, from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. What’s that? Oh, yeah. I’m an idiot and picked up a new craft to completely distract me from everything else I should be doing. But dang, I’m enamored of cross-stitch right now. It’s a really straightforward skill, without being so easy it’s boring. Those little even stitches are so neat and orderly. And the patterns are just so darn cute. What will I do with the finished product? No idea. But I like having a portable little project for when I get a few seconds to sit down. And I love that this is a year-long sampler project, so we get one little piece at a time. (And if you want to do it, the price goes up from $10 to $16.95 after this Friday the 11th, so sign up now!)

The goal for January is to finish up the outlines of all of the frames (I have about 3 of 13 done already), and complete the contents of the January frame.

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For posterity, I thought I’d record some of my quilting-related goals for this year. I won’t call them resolutions, but these are things that I’d like to get done this year.

First, a handful of specific projects I’d like to accomplish:

Quilts or duvet covers for both kids – This is the year that my kids will move from cribs to big-kid beds, and I thought it only appropriate that they get a quilt upgrade (the first ones I made for them, while sentimental, are kind of crappy). In my head, this is shaping up to be a many-faceted project, but I’ve got some time.

Duvet cover for us – Ack! How on earth do you commit to a quilt for your own bed?! But it’s high time, if I really want to call myself a quilter, that I sleep under my own work. Except, well, we like to sleep with a down comforter, so duvet cover it is. We’ll see.

Matching pillows – That’s right. Pillow shams. Decorative pillows. My husband is just shaking his head at the thought.

Minimum 2 Project Linus donations – I would really like to make some quilts for Project Linus. My kids were the recipient of a PL blanket (knitted) when they were in the NICU, and my daughter still sleeps with hers. Seems only right to pay it back.

A bag – There are so many cute bag patterns out there, I am dying to leave my comfort zone and make one.

Clothing – I’m not sure whether it’ll be a skirt for me, a dress for my daughter, or what. But again with the comfort zone, I want to try to make a piece of clothing. Redeem myself for the disaster that was the formal dress my mom and I made when I was in high school.

Second, some more general, overarching goals:

Name quilts – I’m sick of referring to my quilts in generic terms. They need names. Except, I kind of suck at creative names. But, you know, I’ll try. I might just give them people names, we’ll see.

Say “no” more often – I’ve said “yes” a few too many times to people who want me to make a quilt for them. I mean, I’m torn. I enjoy doing it for my friends, and hey, I like that they pay me for it. But I find I’m spending so much time on those, that I don’t get to the other things on my list.

Use scraps/stash more – Trying to use what I have and put things together in more interesting ways, instead of always buying new fabric for a new project. Plus, scraps are cool! If I learned anything from my retreat, it’s that you can do SO much with even the littlest pieces.

Use all fabrics from one line less – Related to that last goal, I want to get away from using only a single line of fabric in a quilt. I mean, sure, it looks great together. It’s supposed to. But I want to do it a little less.

Bigger quilts - I know, size doesn’t necessarily matter. But I want to make more quilts for use on actual beds this year. I will not fear quilting them. I will not fear quilting them.

So, what are your sewing goals this year? Similar to mine? Totally different? Any suggestions for me?